Ice Cream
by roses and hello
Summary: Post-battle, Luna decides what Harry needs is ice-cream.


Written for Lisa's birthday!

* * *

Sometimes, Harry wonders how he did it. How he got through all those nights where it seemed like the world might end the following day. He's learning to stop picking out blood reds and death spell greens.

He wonders if Hermione and Ron find the nightmares didn't stop after Voldemort did, but he doesn't want to risk reigniting theirs by asking. Instead, he lets the shadows under his eyes grow evermore prominent, and throws himself into the rebuilding effort.

He volunteers anywhere a boy who didn't finish school's skills might be required. Helping re-construct houses which had been reduced to rubble takes up most of his time. It gives him space to decide what he wants to do with his life - does he want to go back to school? He doesn't think he could bear it. So much happened there, how could he resume lessons in the same place?

Today, he has offered to help with Ollivander's shop. Funnily enough, though, as he approaches down Diagon Alley, it looks as though he's been beaten to it.

"Harry! You came," Luna says delightedly. "I wasn't sure if you would."

"I'm here," Harry answers warily, eyeing up the building. "Is Ollivander inside? I can get started right away."

Luna waves a hand airily, stepping away from the shop and closing the door behind her. "That won't be necessary. Mr. Ollivander's shop was barely touched by Death Eaters - isn't that good? He was able to reopen as soon as the War ended."

"Yes, yes, that's... Luna, what am I doing here? I thought he needed help, I thought-" But now he thinks about it, really thinks about it, he remembers hearing that Ollivander's shop had been untouched. No sign of a struggle, because he had gone quietly.

"I wanted to be sure your schedule was free," Luna explains, linking arms with him and leading him away from the wand shop. "If I'd asked you to spend time with me, you would have arranged to help somebody else."

He frowns at her, but does not withdraw his arm. "Are you saying that wouldn't have been a good use of my time?"

"Is that what you heard?" she asks, no trace of sarcasm in her voice. "Well, that's interesting. Ice-cream, I think. Fortescue's has reopened. His niece. They still don't know what happened to Mr. Fortescue."

A shiver passes through Harry, because there are still too many people unidentified. He will never be able to find them all.

Luna notices and frowns at him, evidently wondering whether he is cold, and if not, what manner of creature caused his shiver. Perhaps the next time he sees a mention of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks in the Quibbler, it will be accompanied by a note of how shivers are a possible method of identification.

Harry mentally kicks himself, because it is unkind of him to think like this, and only his frustration is making him do so.

"I'll pay," she offers brightly. "It can be a thank you present, for getting me out of Mr. Malfoy's cellar. I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't shown up."

A tight feeling settles itself in Harry's chest. "That was Dobby's doing."

Luna stops outside Fortescue's to pull open the door for him. "It can be a thank you present for saving the wizarding world, then," she says with a shrug. "Or it - buying ice-cream for each other is something friends do, isn't it?"

He stops, having been about to refuse the saviour of the wizarding world ice-cream. Luna's large eyes fix on his, and he finds himself nodding. "Thanks, Luna, I'd like that."

It is a mistake to let her choose the ice-cream. Cockroach Cluster Surprise makes his tongue curl up in his mouth - and because he picked that to eat before his 'Fierce Fizzle', the latter is almost gone by the time he's ready to eat it.

Luna is happily eating her Every Flavour Bean Ice-Cream, and he's certain that looks like every flavour together. He definitely recognises the colours for sprouts and candyfloss.

"I might get another bowl," Harry says awkwardly, and she beams at him.

"Oh, this was a good idea then! I did wonder if you would get cross at me, but it's awfully hard to get cross when the ice-cream is so good."

Harry mumbles his agreement, and nearly runs to the counter, purchasing butterscotch and bubblegum ice-cream. Or, attempting to purchase. The girl at the counter refuses his money. Partly because he knows having the Chosen One - or The Boy Who Disarmed, whatever he was these days - eating at her establishment was good for business, and partly because he has just noticed Harry Potter ice-cream, he thanks her.

When he returns to Luna, she has mixed all her ice-cream colours together, leaving herself with an unappetising-looking sludge colour. "Will you come back to Hogwarts?"

He shakes his head. "Not if I can help it. Hopefully I'll manage without my final year."

"There's a catch-up course this summer for those who were - disrupted last year." Her eyes fix on her bowl, and he thinks of how she got carted off by Death Eaters. "It means I shouldn't have to repeat my sixth year. It would have been nice to have friends - to have you in my year. I expect if you aren't going back, Ron and Hermione won't either."

Harry confirms this. It is a source of pain for Mrs. Weasley, that only three out of her six sons managed to finish Hogwarts. She says she is happy to have Ron whole, and the things her boys have achieved are greater than academics. She means it, too, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't like their futures to be a little more secure. It doesn't help that Ron flits between wanting to be an Auror one day, to wanting to go into the 'family business' the next.

"What do you want to do?"

"With my life?" Luna rubs her eyes, and he suddenly notices how tired she looks, and wonders if he's not the only one with nightmares after all. "I helped save the world a few weeks ago. I think I would like to keep making a contribution."

These words ring true with Harry. Isn't this what he has been trying to do since the Battle of Hogwarts?

"I want to devote my life to Crumple-Horned Snorkacks."

And his feeling of affinity with Luna dissolves into hunched shoulders and tightly-pressed lips, in an attempt not to laugh.

Luna has always been this way, though, and it is a sobering thought that her father's search for Snorkacks essentially left their house in tatters. Do they need help rebuilding? Perhaps he should offer. Later, though.

Her ability to believe in the impossible strengthened him at one point. Briefly, the title 'The Girl Who Believed' flits through his mind, and he smiles at how ridiculous he is. If he compartmentalises Luna, he is doing what so many of the Wizarding World do to him - expecting her to believe despite everything, like he must survive despite everything. Besides, if Luna becomes The Girl Who Believed, where would he stop? The Boy Who Kept Going (Neville), The Girl Who Knew... Far Too Much (Hermione), The Traitor Who Turned (Malfoy - or maybe that would be more appropriate for Malfoy's mother).

"I don't expect you to understand," Luna tells him, and he realises he has smiled at the wrong point. "Not many people do. But isn't that all the more reason to do it?"

"Do whatever makes you happy," he says, and means it. If she wants to chase after a dream, who is he to stop her?

"Will you take your own advice?" she asks, cocking her head to the side. Clearly, his expression is as baffled as he feels, for she leans in closer, and whispers, "You did wonderfully. But nobody will mind if you stop battling and rest once in a while."

He smiles at her, finding it was exactly what he needed to hear. "Thanks, Luna. I think I needed this."

She grins back, spooning more ice-cream into her mouth, and though he doesn't understand how she can eat it without her face screwing up in distaste, or why she wears her wand behind her ear, or how she came to believe in Snorkacks, he finds he doesn't need to.


End file.
